Chicago – Lawyer Of Chicago Officer Charged With Murder Says Video ‘Distorts Images’

Chicago – The lawyer for a white Chicago police officer charged with murdering a black teenager said on Wednesday his client feared for his life and that footage from a patrol car camera released this week is unreliable because video “distorts images.”

The lawyer, Daniel Herbert, told CNN that on Oct. 20, 2014 Officer Jason Van Dyke arrived at the scene 18 minutes after a suspect carrying a knife was reported to have threatened businesses and vandalized police cruisers.

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Prosecutors said on Tuesday that Van Dyke shot 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times only 30 seconds after he arrived on the street on the southwest side of Chicago. They said Van Dyke started shooting just six seconds after emerging from his patrol car, emptying his gun at McDonald and preparing to reload.

Van Dyke’s lawyer said on CNN that the dashboard camera video, released by the city on Tuesday 13 months after the shooting, was not an indicator of his client’s guilt.

“Video by its nature is two-dimensional. It distorts images. So what appears to be clear on a video sometimes is not always that clear,” Herbert said. He said Van Dyke “truly was in fear for his life as well as the lives of his fellow police officers.”

Authorities said McDonald was carrying a pocket knife and had the hallucinogenic drug PCP in his system.

The Chicago shooting charges followed more than a year of widely publicized deaths of mostly unarmed black men at the hands of police officers across the United States, including in New York; Ferguson, Missouri; Baltimore and North Charleston, South Carolina.

Some of the killings were also caught on camera, fueling public outrage that led to nationwide protests over police use of deadly force. The uproar and a national debate on race relations was a factor in the rise of the Black Lives Matter civil rights movement, which has become an issue in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.

Demonstrations in Chicago on Tuesday night were mostly peaceful following the announcement by prosecutors that Van Dyke had been charged with first-degree murder and the release of the video. Five people were arrested in the protests, police said.

“Police will continue to uphold the rights of residents to make their voice heard, but illegal activity or behavior which threatens the safety of the public or our police officers will not be tolerated,” the Chicago Police Department said in a statement on Wednesday.

Among the comments posted on the department’s Facebook page were some asking people not to judge all officers by the actions of one.

RESIGNATION DEMANDED

The release of the video has been controversial because it took so long. It was made public only after an independent journalist filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The police department had argued that releasing the video would taint multiple investigations.

Members of the Chicago City Council’s black caucus demanded the resignation of Police Superintendent Gerry McCarthy.

“We want McCarthy gone. We want new leadership,” Alderman Roderick Sawyer said at a news conference.

Alderman Howard Brookins said the council, which signed off on a $5 million city settlement with McDonald’s family even before a lawsuit was filed, was misled about the content of the tape. Brookins said council members were told something was “fuzzy, something grey” about it.

Van Dyke is the first Chicago police officer to face a murder charge for an on-duty incident in decades.

The Fraternal Order of Police Chicago Lodge 7 union is raising money for Van Dyke to be released on bond. At a brief court hearing on Tuesday, a judge denied bond for Van Dyke.